July 2010

July 29, 2010

I said I would be back with a report on more of what we did yesterday (by the way, No Watch Wednesday was successful for the kids; however, I faltered and watched an episode of Red Dwarf to get myself back to sleep after being awakened by a strange noise outside).

After the t-shirts were finished, Esme' wanted to paint so she just used the rest of the fabric paint that was on the palette. I think it turned out lovely.

I think I am going to frame this stencil (If I can remove the duct tape!). Unplanned art at its' best.

And here is what Asher did, all on his own. My husband, Stephen, had given him this block. Asher decided to paint the block and make a print. I was quite impressed, since usually he needs some direction with his art. I know, it's hard to tell where the art ends and our table begins!

July 28, 2010

Our family is going to try to refrain from watching movies on Wednesdays. We don't watch any television these days, but we do tend to indulge in a movie almost every day. OK, it's mainly just me and the kids. To you other work-at-home (or stay-at-home) moms...doesn't the day get a little long without a movie thrown in there somewhere? We cook healthy meals, do lots of art and craft projects, play in the back yard, read lots of books, tickle each other, do puzzles, etc., but I still feel the need for some time to sit and relax in front of a movie. Usually during this time, the children in my child care are napping and I nurse my son, Asher, to sleep for his nap. Maybe if my daughter, Esme', still took a nap we would watch far fewer movies. Anyway, somehow I feel like we need to take a step back from all the viewing, so we have begun No Watch Wednesday.

Here is a bit of what we did today:

1) Scratch art. I found the tutorial for this at darling clementine. We did our crayon drawings yesterday and painted them before bed. Today we got to play with them at quiet time.

Here is a photo of Esme' hard at work trying to fill in all the white of her paper.

Here are our images before we painted them over with black paint. Looking back, I see no point in having made any fancy designs. It didn't seem to affect the finished product at all. But I enjoyed it! And Asher saw the top left drawing and said "you daw doccer ball?" Priceless. Esme's drawing is on the top right.

Here is one of the drawings with a little paint by Esme'. I thought it was almost frame-worthy at this point.

As it turns out, the black paint wasn't easy to scratch back through (I may have gone a little over the top with the layers). The kids weren't very interested in them. They each made a couple of scratches, and then I finished these. I will save the others for road trips.

2) Our second project for the day was freezer paper stenciling. I traced a cool butterfly from the internet and followed these instructions at Running With Scissors. My stencil was quite hard to cut out and I wanted to use the stencil a few times, so I left out the ironing bit. I will iron before washing though. I did all the cutting and painting, but Esme' picked her colors and told me exactly where to put which color! A very fun collaborative with great results!

I like how the butterfly on the right has different wings- one has a turquoise stripe and the other has a pink one.

I will post the third project tomorrow. I am just getting the hang of all this and my computer is slow.

July 25, 2010

I was given a can of chalkboard paint a couple of years ago from a friend who had made her son a simple chalkboard. My daughter already had one on her easel, but for some reason I kept the paint. Little did I know that I would become fascinated with it. I recently saw a post about chalkboard nesting boxes at The Artful Parent. The kids had some nesting boxes that weren't used very much, so I covered them with chalkboard paint. They will be great for art supplies, but I also think they would be fun to use as stacking boxes with always changing designs. I could help Asher learn his shapes, for example, by drawing triangles, squares, ovals, etc. and having him match up the correct sides. Anyway, I got so inspired that I came up with the idea to turn a couple of old Melissa and Doug refrigerator magnet boxes into travel chalkboards!! I am thrilled with them.

Since these projects, I have found several other great ideas for chalkboard paint.

July 23, 2010

Welcome to Where We Are.
The name of my blog was inspired by the following quote:

"All
I need to do is start where I am and move in a direction I want to go.
The path will unfold as I step forward."

I wrote this down several years ago, but didn't jot down the author's name. I just wanted to have the quote around me. If you know who wrote this, please let me know so that I can give credit (and perhaps read more by the same author!).

I visit several blogs on a daily basis- mainly blogs having to do with parenting and children- and recently I began to feel the pull to start one myself. The main draw of a blog for me is to stay connected, in a more dynamic way than email, with my family and friends who live far away. I also want to be a part of the growing community of parents who are sharing their wonderful ideas on how to enrich the lives of their children (and themselves), while at the same time creating a lovely photographic journal to show to my children over the years.

I don't have a clear
vision of what I want this blog to be. In the spirit of the quotation above, I will just take a step forward and see where it leads. I will be sharing photographs, stories about life with chickens, quotations that I find inspiring, my bento creations, my knitting projects, art & craft ideas, and more. I look forward to meeting you along the way.